Definitely a bummer. So far, the doors, fenders and hood are the only pieces not being replaced.

 

So the quarters are ordered and so is the passenger door skin. I snapped a couple pictures at the shop today.

Love the old repair on the quarter:


The door is a little harder to see, but rather than skin the door or even try to body work it, the previous placed just slathered body filler on:


However, there is some metal actually going ON the car rather than coming off. Two shots of the fabricated piece below the windshield channel:

 

Looks like the guys at the body shop have been busy at work. Quarters are cut off, doors and fenders are sand-blasted and inner quarters have been patched. I am told that the quarters may be hung by the end of the week. Pictures:





This is actually the good door if you can believe it:


Fenders look good:

 

I'm about to restart my 66 LS swap - finished it to drivable a couple years ago and now I'm going to go full frame off. Just seeing the body shop pictures you posted makes me nervous as to what will show up on mine.

I'm sure once its done yours will be awesome.

 

Nervous you should be. These things are 50 years old. However, you'll know for sure what's underneath and that it's solid. Just make sure you get a shop that has a good reputation and knows older cars.

 

Parts are starting to go on!!! Didn't have my good camera, but here's a couple shots:

Driver's quarter and door skin:


Taillight panel:


Passenger quarter:


Happy Thanksgiving all!

 

I would have never believed that car needed so much new metal.
Nervous I am about my own project. It's had floor pans, horribly, installed. By someone that really should not be working on cars at this level.
Happy Thanksgiving.

 

I wouldn't have either. I'm really kicking myself for not being more thorough on inspection, but I was so excited to get back into building again. Oh well, you live and you learn.

 

A little more has been done. Quarters completely welded and ground down, patched the drivers sail panel (or c-pillar), inner kick panels patched and tail panel welded. Has to order the very rear crossmember and a couple trunk braces as those were pretty trashed. Slowly but surely. A LOT of $ is going into the body shop, but I'm glad to be fixing it right.

Quarters:




Inner kick panel:


Tail panel:


C-Pillar:

 

It's going to be nice when your done with it. I went through this with my Camaro but replaced more than that. I love 66's my favirite body style.

 

Thanks. I am excited to see the final product.

 

What color are you going to paint yours? Mine originally was cameo beige with two tone fawn interior. Since the car is not going to be stock or original, I'm going back with the factory color Mist Blue, with Light Blue bucket seat interior.

 

Same color it was when I bought it - Indigo Blue. It's a metallic blue from early 90s. Paint code WA9792

 

Looks like we might be finally finished cutting out the rusty parts, patching and replacing pieces. The final pieces were the back of the rear wheel-housings where they meet the trunk floor and the rear braces where the body mounts to the trunk. They were almost completely gone. Someone totally botched that area to the point I had no idea what to look for for the replacement pieces. At any rate, I found them and they are now back in.

Cut out and ready for new pieces:


You can see some of the repair to the rear wheel-house. Still needs to be cleaned up:


Passenger side:


New brace:


Drivers inside frame rail:

 

I still need to put those back in after doing my trunk. Thanks for the pics!

Getting closer Jim

 

Thanks Dan

 

Been WAY too long. The body shop has had a couple other projects that they need to get out. Not a big deal. I'm excited to get the car back, but not in a rush. I pay for time and materials as work gets done weekly, so it's not like they have a big pile of my cash. They finished off removing the drip rails and installing the Kindigit door handles. Pics:

 

It's coming along nice. Keep the pictures coming.

 

Finally back on the Chevelle. We sold our house a couple years ago, so I didn't have a plane to work on the car. The new house took about 2 years to finish. During that time, I had the body shop hold off on the work. Now that I am in the new house and have a shop here, I can get going again. I decided to make a couple changes in the build and take it a little further.

To recap, we had already replaced the roof skin, both qtrs, inner and outer package tray, rear panel, one door skin and trunk lid. After looking at the shoddy job on the trunk floor, I decided to do that as well. Since I was doing the trunk floor, I decided to narrow the frame and expand the rear wheel well with the kit from ABC. Since I was doing that and have the Tiger Cage to put in, the airride setup just didn't seem like it fit the feel of the car. I put the airride aside for another project and am going coilover since the car feels more 'racey' than 'lowrider'. I like both looks and themes, but this one will be more performance based. Ordered up a set of aluminum body mounts as well from SC&C (took three months).

At any rate, we finished the frame mods (ABC narrowing kit and full boxing) and was ready to send to blast and powder coat, but I forgot about the Holley trans crossmember. Luckily, we were able to modify the frame boxing before sending to powder coat. I didn't get pictures of those mods before it went to the coater, but I'll get some when it's finished.

Some more pics of work to date:

Frame mods:




Floor Gone:


Body on rotisserie:




After the body goes for blasting, we'll epoxy it, coat the floor with lizard skin and start the body work. I'll put more pics up when the frame is done.

 

Looks great. Was there a reason u didn’t go full 1/4s? At least u know it done